Many families follow the old etiquette teaching: Three things civilized people don’t talk about – Politics, Religion, and Money. How dull! Not to mention how dumb! Our home has never been like that. The Stephenson Family has always been both opinionated and vocal.

For brevity’s sake, this is continued. If it is your first time be sure to read the rest. Continue reading →

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The English Language has taken a terrible beating in the hands of Americans, that is, according to the Brits. A veritable tongue lashing I dare say.

Be that as it may, in the last decade or two language usage here in the states has been sorely brutalized. For those of us who write, whether it be letters (who does that?) blog posts, email, tweets, articles or for those aspiring to even greater things, grammar, punctuation, and proper usage are extremely important.

I submit to you that unless we bring that sense of importance into our speech habit as well, the level of language will be so ‘dumbed’ down in the next few years as to be unrecognizable. If any of this matters to you at all, allow me to recommend an article to you from http://writerswrite.co.za/. It is titled:

While the piece is directed to writers, just think of how a few little knowledge bits such as this could improve our speaking. Now don’t get me wrong – I break the rules in my writing and my speaking very often. But if we are as aware of these things as we were when taught them in High School, it would be one more step in the right direction. The other choice is another slip down, in the wrong direction.

At the very least – it’s worth the read. I hope you agree.

Thanks for this goes to StumbleUpon.com

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“Is it not high time for the people of this country explicitly to declare, whether they will be freemen or slaves? It is an important question which ought to be decided. It concerns us more than anything in this life. The salvation of our souls is interested in this event. Immorality of every kind comes in like a torrent. It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail. The religion and public liberty of a people are intimately connected; their interests are interwoven, they cannot subsist separately; and therefore they rise and fall together. For this reason, it is always observable, that those who are combined to destroy the people’s liberties, practice every art to poison their morals. How greatly then does it concern us, at all events, to put a stop to the progress of tyranny. It has advanced already by far too many strides. We are at this moment upon a precipice. The next step may be fatal to us.” – Samuel Adams, October 5, 1772